Thousands of migrants are leaving Tapachula, a city in southeast Mexico, and are believed to be headed to the U.S.
Todd Bensman, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, posted pictures on X of the caravans, highlighting that they were headed out despite an alleged Biden-Harris pact with Mexico that has prohibited them from traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The Biden-Harris administration cut a deal with the Mexicans back in December to scoop up tens of thousands of immigrants from the northern provinces crossing our border and trapping them here in southern Mexico behind militarized roadblocks,” Bensman reported from Tapachula.
“Well now there is a new president of Mexico and these caravans have begun pouring out of the enclave of Tapachula. Behind me is one of about a thousand people that have been on the road now for about a day and a half … but what’s interesting is that instead of roadblocks, the National Guard of Mexico is actually escorting them and the police officers at this checkpoint are telling me that their orders are to just leave them alone, which is something new,” Bensman said.
The Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to significantly cut border crossings were likely done to help the Biden presidential re-election campaign, Bensman suggested in January. Although Kamala Harris has now taken Biden’s place on the Democrat ticket, the pact was believed to still be in place.
Now, under Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum, Bensman says the Biden-Harris deal may be nearing its end, and the number of border crossings could spike again.
“If this is a trend, that means that whatever the deal was that was cut with Biden-Harris is waning now and all of these people look like they’re probably gonna be heading to the U.S. border again,” Bensman said. “We should start to see the numbers come back up maybe just in time for the election. For eight months they’ve been able to keep tens of thousands of people off our border and out of news drone sight because it was a terrible optic.”
Bensman said that a 3,000 person caravan already left southern Mexico for the U.S. about a week ago and a thousand person caravan is gearing up to leave.
“I suspect that they’re probably leaving Tapachula and heading to the border now because they feel like if Trump wins, they’re gonna close the gates up there at the U.S.,” Bensman said.
